as though awaiting some return
by Fading wind
Summary: Set before and after the final scene in AGoS. Two reunions. Holmes/Irene, Holmes/Watson.


**as though awaiting some return**

"_Irene_?" Holmes spluttered at the person standing at the door. She was wearing male attire, but there was no real attempt at a disguise.

"Apparently people pretending to be dead have a way of finding each other," Irene said, stepping inside the room, surveying the shabby furnishings. Holmes shut the door. "Who knew?"

She sat down on the bed, spoke again before Holmes could work out what to say aside from the hideously obvious _but you're supposed to be dead!_. "Have you heard yet? The Colonel's dead. You may come out of hiding now."

"I haven't- I've been tracking him! He was alive just last night!"

"_Someone _acted before you did," Irene said, and Holmes detected that hint of smugness in her tone. Well, this morning was just one startling revelation after another, wasn't it? "Don't look so shocked. Have I taught you nothing?"

Holmes looked for clues, in Irene's clothes, her expression, her hands, but nothing clear surfaced. "Only that you are always more brilliant than I could ever predict." He sat down next to her, felt the familiar awe that made his heart race around Irene. "Tell me, how did you do it?"

"I'll tell you over dinner tonight," Irene answered. "We can return to our lives now, Sherlock. I think celebrations are in order. The Savoy, eight o'clock? I'll try not to be late this time."

"It wasn't simply a matter of being late last time."

"Did you really think I was dead?" she asked, quietly. Holmes wanted to say _no_, didn't want it to seem as if he'd underestimated her, but he had. He bowed his head, and Irene said, "You have such little faith in me," sighed, tangled her hand in Holmes' hair.

"I didn't dare hope," Holmes replied, brushing a finger across her wrist. "And I suppose- I was too busy to hope. Chasing a criminal mastermind halfway across Europe quite wipes everything else out of your head, I've found."

Irene chuckled, taking hold of Holmes' hand and tracing teasing patterns on the back of it. "Does it? Not everything else, surely? You always find room in that brain of yours to think about that handsome doctor of yours. There's no one like him, is there?"

Holmes' wistful smile matched Irene's completely. He leaned closer and kissed her behind her ear. "But my dear, there is no one like you, either," he said. "You killed Moran. You had everyone fooled. My death didn't fool you, did it?"

Her smile turned sweeter; she let him rest his head on her shoulder and said, "No, darling. No one will ever know me half as well as I know you."

* * *

><p>Watson marched into the room, and when his eyes lit upon Holmes he said, "<em>Holmes<em>. How did you- You were-"

"Had you such little faith in me?" Holmes asked, before it occurred to him whose words he was paraphrasing.

"Little faith? Oh, I'll show you little faith, you bastard!" Holmes knew it was coming, could have moved away, but didn't: he let Watson punch him, felt his nose break, felt blood begin to gush. He grit his teeth and buried his nose in his sleeve while Watson continued to shout at him: "You fell ten thousand miles down a bloody waterfall in the freezing cold in bloody Switzerland and you expect me to think that you- Even with that oxygen device it- It was impossible. How could you ever expect me to hope that you- how could I _dare _hope that you-"

And Watson was _crying _and well, that was surprising. Holmes decided to neglect the nosebleed and wrapped his arms around Watson, instead, awkward but well-meaning, and he touched one hand to the back of Watson's neck and marvelled at the feeling of Watson's hair on his fingertips.

"Even if I wanted to hope... how could I?" Watson whispered.

"It was quite a fall, wasn't it," Holmes agreed. "Not... ten thousand miles though, I don't think. But... I knew, I calculated, the likelihood that I would make it out of there alive was not a great one. It appears that the Lady Fortuna was on my side. Had I waited, though, delayed for a few more seconds... you would have come through that door and helped me defeat our nemesis. I had no way of knowing when you would come, if you would come at all. But-" he hesitated, only for a moment, "it was a blessing that you came in before I fell. I made sure, Watson, that had I indeed perished, your eyes would have been the last sight I would ever see on this black earth."

Watson was silent for a long time, his body shaking against Holmes', and Holmes _hoped _that it was sinking in, how much he loved Watson, because Watson's eyes, Watson's _eyes_. They were the most beautiful blue; the way they widened before Holmes fell was a perfect secret that Holmes would have taken with him to the grave.

"You look ridiculous," Watson huffed, finally, pushing weakly at Holmes' right shoulder. Then he stilled, stared as if seeing the ghost of a wound, and Holmes recognised the new symmetry of the skin underneath their clothing for the first time, wondered whether one day he would be allowed the privilege of Watson's mouth on his scar, wondered how that would feel, how it would feel to kiss Watson's scar in return.

Watson exhaled slowly and said, "I'm being comforted by a man who's just come back from the dead dressed as my armchair with his nose bleeding into my shirt because I punched him. What has my life come to?"

"Watson," Holmes said, simply; he found that in all his years he had never known any word into which he could put as much emotion as this one. Then he laughed, and Watson laughed, and Holmes caught Mary's eye over Watson's shoulder as she came into the room.

She smiled at him. Perhaps things would be all right again.


End file.
